This invention relates to head restraints for vehicles.
Before the advent of head restraints in vehicles, whiplash and more severe injuries were occasioned by the tendency of a person""s head to remain relatively fixed in position while their bodies were accelerated in a forward direction during a collision from the rear. Such accelerations tended to cause the passenger""s head to move relatively rearward. Various types of head restraints have been used to prevent such relative rearward motion. The restraints are typically in the form of a cushion at roughly head height, and placed roughly above, and possibly slightly to the rear, of the passenger seat back.
One of the problems with such cushions is that they tend to obstruct the vehicle driver""s view to the rear of the vehicle provided by a center-mounted rear-view mirror. For this reason, the head restraints in many cars are relatively low, and afford less protection than a higher-mounted restraint might provide. In many cars, the head restraints available for rear-seat passengers are even lower than those of front-seat passengers.
One technique for ameliorating the problem associated with reduced rear-view visibility attributable to rear-passenger head restraints is to make the rear restraints electrically movable from an operable position in which restraint is provided but the view is obstructed to an inoperable position in which the restraint is not in position for restraining the head, but visibility is improved. This solution is both expensive and does not solve the problem of visibility during those periods in which the rear seat is occupied with the head restraints in an operable position.
Improved head restraints are desired.
A vehicle according to an aspect of the invention is adapted for motion principally in a forward direction, and includes a passenger (where the driver is considered to be a passenger) seat including a seat back. The vehicle further includes a flexible, generally transparent rear or side head restraint for the passenger seat. The head restraint is a transparent, flexible structure, which may comprise a net or transparent membrane lying generally above the seat back. The side head restraint may lie somewhat toward one side of the passenger portion of the seat back. The head restraint further includes attachment means associated with the transparent, flexible structure and with a structure of the vehicle, for holding the transparent, flexible structure in a position such that the head of a passenger is restrained by the flexible, transparent structure, and not by the vehicle structure, when the vehicle accelerates in the forward direction in the case of a rear head restraint and in a transverse direction in the case of a side head restraint.